


First Dates and Hospital Hallways

by cecilia095



Category: New Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, First Dates, Hospitalization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 03:56:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12975369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilia095/pseuds/cecilia095
Summary: "Nick Miller. Works at 'Zombie Novel' and 'None of Your Damn Business'. And you're still going through with this date, Jess?"AU.





	First Dates and Hospital Hallways

**Author's Note:**

> [ "I’m calling to cancel our date because I’m actually in the ER right now, sorry. …I mean, sure, I guess you can come down here, but… okay…" ](https://notallbees.tumblr.com/post/105994550160/au-scenarios-were-bad-at-dating-edition)
> 
> cecilia095, back at it with the AU's.

She only stalks his Facebook  _once_ before their date. (Okay, fine, twice.)

"Nick Miller. Works at ' _Zombie Novel_ ' and ' _None of Your Damn Business_ '. And you're  _still_ going through with this date, Jess?"

Jess shrugs and keeps scrolling. "It says he went to law school, Cece."

"The Griffin isn't some prestige law school, babe. It's that shitty bar downtown."

"Oh." Jess bites down on her lip and thinks about Cece's criticism, but then she thinks about how she's been single for seven months and sixteen days and Little Jess hasn't seen sunlight in  _awhile_.

"I'm not saying  _don't go_ , I'm just saying don't be devastated if you're not Mrs. Miller after this date. I just want you to find someone  _so_ good for you because you're too good for like, everyone."

Cece's husband Schmidt is at the fridge, and he snickers. "Oh, please, Cecelia. She wasn't too good for _Winston_. Remember that disaster?"

Jess rolls her eyes. Of course she remembers the Winston disaster. "You knew I was deathly allergic to cats and you  _still_ told him to bring his cat on the date. We ate at a four-star restaurant!"

"He's a  _service cat_. Picca knew," Schmidt says with a grunt, and then he shuts the refrigerator door all dramatically and races over to the kitchen table, peeking at Jess's open laptop. "He looks poor."

"I think it's all the flannels," Cece says. "Very Goodwill-ish."

"Whatever." Jess shuts her laptop and stands up, smoothing out her skirt. "You guys can yell at me and say, ' _I told you sooo_ ' in that annoying way you always do after the date fails. I have to go home and get ready."

—

She breaks all of the rules and sends a pre-date text. Cece would hide her phone if she knew. It just says, ' **Excited for tonight! Same place?** ' and Nick answers after a few minutes, just a, ' **Same time ;)** '.

—

She's mid-lipstick application when her phone rings. "Winston? Hey, look, I've got like, two minutes."

(They're cool now, b-t-w. They made up about the cat-on-a-date thing, and now they're actually decent friends, and Jess likes his new girlfriend Aly a lot.)

"So do I. I just got called into work for a double and Furguson has a cold. You think I could drop him off at your place for a little bit?"

"If you cage him, come loaded with Benadryl, - non-drowsy, please. I have a date. - and don't mind him staying alone for a few hours until I get back, then fine. But don't ask me to touch him."

"He needs his butt pill, Jess. 6:00."

"That's in twenty minutes," Jess says. "Can't Cece and Schmidt watch him?"

"I tried. Schmidt texted me back that this is their first night alone together in over two weeks, and that if I interrupt their love-making he  _will_ murder me. Ain't nobody got time to get murdered, Jess!"

"Fine. Bring him over, but he stays in the damn cage until my Benadryl kicks in. Let me just... I have to text my date and ask him if we can meet a few minutes later." 

"I'm already outside your door."

" _Of_ course you are."

—

Nick agrees to meet at 7:00, and at 6:30 (sorry, Winston, Benadryl takes a little while to kick in) Jess's (gloved) hand is up the butt of Winston's stupid cat. 

"You're lucky you're semi-cute. And that your dad gave me $20 to do this." She cringes as she gives Furguson his pill, ignoring the fact that this little spot underneath her nose feels itchy.

. . .

A few minutes later, she's panicking, dialing Winston over and over until he answers. 

"Make it quick," he tells her, and she hears sirens and a lot of talking and... a screaming child? in the background.

" _You_ are dead to me. My face is swelling up. The Benadryl you gave me was an antacid tablet, you dummy."

"Ooohhh... guess I should stop peeling the labels off of those bottles, huh."

"You  _guess_." She laughs bitterly into the phone, and then her breathing is staggered. "I need to go to the hospital."

"Girl, you drive. Furguson would take you but he only has his permit, so..."

"I can't  _drive_ , Winston. The underneath of my eyes look like a swollen Twinkie. My date is in...  _now_ and I can't go like  _this_! Are you kidding me?!"

—

Winston calls Aly, his girlfriend, and thank goodness she just got off of a twenty-hour shift and is  _totally_ up to driving someone to the emergency room.

"I told him to leave the damn cat home," Aly says. "I'm so sorry. You look so  _awful_."

"Like a swollen Twinkie, I know, I know," Jess says, her face getting puffier by the minute. "Aly, I feel horrible. For one, I left the cat loose in my apartment, and I don't own a litter box, so. Also, I'm missing my date, and - Oh crap. I'm missing my date!"

Aly shrugs, and Jess is pretty sure she just ran a red light. "Would you like me to turn around and take you there instead?!"

Jess can't feel her mouth right now, so she just shakes her head fervently.

"I have - I have to call him," she says as Aly is pulling into the emergency room parking lot.

"We're kind of busy here...", Aly tells her, gesturing to the hospital they've just pulled up at. "C'mon, who cares."

"I would," Jess says. "I've been stood up so many times."

Aly rolls her eyes and takes this long, exasperated breath. "What's his number?", she asks, pulling out her phone.

"Here." Jess hands over her phone to Aly. "His name is Nick."

"I dated someone named Nick once," she tells Jess, mid-dial. "He's in prison now."

"Lovely. Tell - tell him we're here, okay?"

Jess feels horrible. Being stood up  _sucks_ \- she'd know. One time, Schmidt set her up with someone who stood her up because he forgot he had to attend a wedding. ... _His_   _own_ wedding.

"' _Hi, stranger who I owe absolutely_ no _explanation to! I'm in the emergency room because I gave a cat a butt pill. Let's reschedule!_ ' Why, Jess? Why do you have to be like this?! Just tell him you can't make it."

Jess, annoyed, grabs the phone from Aly, who's also annoyed because she's trying to usher Jess in through the hospital doors. They're kind of pressed for time, here.

"Jess!" He picks up after the second ring. She looks at the time on the phone. It's 7:15. "Hey, are you on the way? I got here a few minutes ago, I'm sorry I was a little late. My body just doesn't know how to show up early."

"I'm - I'm actually calling you to cancel. I'm so sorry! It's actually a really long story, but also a really stupid one, so..."

She hears Nick take a breath on the other end, and then he just goes, "Great. Another one of those."

Aly yanks the phone from Jess as they walk through the ER doors. "She's in the ER because of my boyfriend's cat. Try again after her face doesn't look like a bag of jumbo campfire marshmallows."

"Wait!" Nick pauses, and they can hear him clear his throat. "I'm - I'll come down there. I'll - I'll see you soon."

"A first date in the ER? What's better than that? Do you guys want stale vending machine crackers, too?"

Nick already hung up, and Jess is half-scattering to the front desk and pointing at her swollen face to one of the nurses behind it, half-freaking out that this stranger she met on a dating app three days ago is coming here, when she's like  _this_.

—

Aly waits with Jess once she gets a bed and an IV, and she snaps a picture of her face and group texts it to Winston and Cece and Schmidt.

"Sorry. You look  _so_ funny, but I also feel really bad."

"I'm sure you do," Jess says through lips that are taking up literally half of her entire face.

"Miss Day? You expecting a visitor?", one of the nurse asks, popping her head through the curtain by Jess's bed. Jess's eyes widen, and the nurse apologizes. "Just say the word if you aren't and we'll send them away."

"Um. Kind of. Aly, can you...", she shoos Aly away, and the nurse doesn't ask any questions, just pushes back the curtain for Aly to leave and for Nick to enter.

His hands are pocketed, and there's this look of concern painted on his face as if he's known her his whole entire life, or something. He doesn't look scared of her... puffiness, and he sits down casually by the chair next to her bed.

"I thought you were screwing with me. Believe it or not, this whole ' _I have to cancel our date because I'm in the hospital_ ' thing has happened before, only she didn't go into anaphylaxis, but she  _did_ have sex with my roommate."

Jess holds out her - swollen - hand to him. "I'm Jess. I... just realized. My hand. You don't have to shake it."

Nick bites the inside of his cheek and just kind of brushes his fingers over the top of her hand. "Luckily I checked you out on Facebook so I know what un-puffy you looks like."

Jess tries to laugh, but she feels really shitty right now. And embarrassed. Some first date, huh? 

"Why did you even come here? It's not like you really know me. I mean... we did text for three days, but it's not like we're in love, or anything," she says with a staggered breath. Her face hurts every time she talks.

He doesn't look like he has an answer - not a legitimate one, anyway. He scrunches his nose and just leans back in the chair. "I liked you from the minute I started talking to you, I don't know. I'm not... I'm not good at this 'dating' crap, but I know if a girl asks me how my day went and is actually not happy with the answer ' _It was fine_ ', she's worth at least  _meeting_."

Jess does that. ' _How's your day?_ ' ' _Fine, yours?_ ' ' _No, like..._ how _is your_ day?'

"So, what are you allergic to? Was it really a _cat_?", he asks, laughing a little.

Jess rolls her eyes at him. "Unfortunately. Do you have a cat? Because if you do, this won't work."

"I can't even afford one if I wanted to. You know the shelter charges $23 for adoption fees?! I feel like we're doin' them a favor, so I don't really get that whole thing."

Jess laughs. "It goes back to the shelter. So they can help other cats. Also, _phew_ to the no-cat thing. Hey, so... Are you... Your Facebook says you went to law school?"

"I had three semesters to go, and then I decided I wanted to be a bartender instead. I'm like a reverse success story!"

. . .

He stays by her bedside until the swelling on her face goes down. Three hours, four packs of hospital vending machine cookies, and five paragraphs of his (semi-good? - she's impressed.) zombie novel later.

"So my dad dying kind of screwed me up," he says, "but it also made me realize I want to be a better person than he was. A much better person than he was. I'm obviously still working on the 'much' part."

"It takes a pretty good person to sit here with a stranger in a cold, dark hospital hallway all night." She reaches her hand across her body and rubs his knee. "I think you're better than you give yourself credit for."

. . .

"Some first date, huh." He's on his fifth vending machine food of the night - this time, it's Cheez-Its.

"Oh, we're still calling it that?"

He winks at her, and then he reads the time. "It's 1 AM. Five hours into our date. Normally, I'd be thinking about getting a wig and changing my name to something like, _Yolanda_ so the crazy girl I went out with tonight wouldn't be able to hunt me down."

"But now?", Jess bites down on her lip - her less-swollen, kind-of-normal-sized lip.

"But now I'm thinkin' about where to take you for date number two."

—

Date number two is at The Griffin. You know, 'the law school'.

They kiss for the first time up against the hood of his car at the end of the night. They taste like Old Fashioned's and bar peanuts, and his hand is tangled in her hair.

"All because you insisted on coming to the freakin' ER, Nick Miller," she tells him when he pulls away.

"You're welcome for being a pain in the ass, Jessica Day," he says back, and then he kisses her again, harder this time.


End file.
